SYSTEM_REBOOT

Waiting...

SYSTEM_

80%

FUNCTIONING

REBOOTING SYSTEM

Adam was confused for a moment. Floating in the blackness before his eyes he watched two small letters spinning side by side.

SE

Was he in the Matrix? After all this time he thought he was discovering some elaborate plot about an ultrapowerful alien race, only to learn that it was actually all a lie.?

He was just coming to terms with this new reality when the SE logo vanished and he came back to his senses lying face down on a marble white floor. Oh..... yeah no, that wasn't the matrix that was just the fealty system Reboot. It was a good thing no one else spent so much time in his head or they would be appalled at how stupid he could be sometimes.

Inside the suit and at the periphery of his consciousness, he could feel Fealty, the suit IA, having a near conniption. It was getting tired of having to reboot constantly and was now creating firewalls and other protective failsafes do avoid it. he doubted it would work to any real extend, but he let the little artificial intelligence keep on with what it was doing.

Slowly, he reached out a hand and hauled himself to his feet body groaning under the armor. The marines took a little longer to wake, but it wasn't long before they too were moaning groggily. Adam for his part, was already standing and surveying their surroundings. It was hard to remember what happened before this. He had the vague recollection of walking through a small white canyon and then.... Just the memory of an infinite blue space speckled with little colored lights, but beyond that it was hard to remember. It wasn't that he COULDN"T remember, but it was almost like..... almost like the memory was painful.... No that wasn't the right word either.

The memory was too, heavy?

Yes, no that was a better word. The memory was too heavy, and he couldn't.... lift.... It from the vault in his mind.

He shook himself in frustration replacing his struggling memory with the view around him. At first, all he saw was white, white to his front, white below him, but when he looked up eventually the white vanished into blue, and there was sky above and behind him. It was disorienting, and he continued shaking his head to clear his mind.

As his brain began to fire again, he leaned forward and became aware of, something strange, The wall of white ahead of him was not, in fact and unbroken wall, but now that his mind was working properly he could see panels and seams and, no it wasn't a wall at all.

Adam took a step back just as the last piece of his conscious mind found its place.

He stared upward and then turned to the right and then to the left.

"No way?"

The others had stepped back to join him now, Ramirez standing at his side, "Yo, is that?"

"That, my friend, is the biggest damn spaceship I have ever seen." Though it was NOT in fact the biggest man made object he had ever seen. Lord Avex's Imperial Cruiser was about half the size of this thing. It was bigger than smaller port space stations, but not as big as something like the HUB. Nothing like the Deathstar, in fact, Adam would have put its size at the upper edge of practicality.

"Now how are we supposed to get inside?" Ramirez asked.

Adam paused and then stepped forward, resting the palm of his hand against the hull, and just like that one of the panels depressed inward, and the door opened with a hiss.

Ramirez gave him a look, "You know that is really starting to freak me out. How do you know this shit?"

Adam frowned and looked down at his hand, "How crazy would it be if I said..... because I think I've done this before."

Ramirez just gave him a look, "At this point, I have LITERALLY seen everything, and not like your uncle says he's seen everything when he watches a hillbilly ride a tricycle down the street playing the bagpipes."

"That is oddly specific." Adam said, taking his first step into the strange, alien ship.

Inside, the floors and walls were just as white as everything else had been. It was a sort of void that made him simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. The door sealed behind them as the last marine entered, and they all clustered nervously together as they walked down the small hallway, and out....

into what could only have been the massive main atrium.

The group of them paused at the base of this room heads craned upwards mouths dropped open.

The room was massive, with two large viewing windows on either side, stretching to touch both the ceiling and the floor. In the center of the room sat a set of stairs that crisscrossed in a repeating X pattern all the way up, at least twenty floors or more, the X pattern giving them a vaguely simplified DNA helix structure. At the center of this structure, a clear tube ran the vertical length of the stairs acting as, what Adam could only assume to be, a lift. Overhead the view was a lattice of catwalks and balconies. . Light poured down from a viewing window at the very top of this room. ON this very first floor there were plenty of small seating areas, and couches, placed next to the viewing windows.

Rec room maybe?

It was hard to tell with how alien the design was.

At the End of the room, Adam could see a massive set of twin doors.

"Um, one question?"

"What question is that." Adam wondered mouth still open and barely comprehending the question.

"How the hell do we plan on flying this thing without a crew?"

Adam frowned, he honestly hadn't thought about it, which was weird because everyone knew that you needed a minimum number of crew to command a ship. Even if it was a skeleton crew you still needed someone. For instance, in an emergency the Omen could be run by at least thirty people if necessary when its capacity was well over a thousand, but still, thirty wasn't nothing.

He opened his mouth and found, rather than confusion, words already forming on his tongue, "Don't worry, she only requires a pilot."

The marines shot him a look again, and he could sense the looks on their faces even through the face plates.

"yeah, yeah I know, freaky. Now come on." He took a step forward and the group jogged after him, bypassing the stairs and heading towards the large double doors.

"What do you think they will do with Kanan?" One of the marines asked, a hint of worry in her tone.

Adam shrugged, "I can't imagine that they will do much, they can't."

"Good of him to stay behind like that." Someone else offered.

Adam nodded, "It was, but I have a feeling he is getting his compensation. He hasn't' seen his wife in what.... Almost a decade now. He deserves whatever time they will let him have with her."

The group grew silent again.

The room was very large, and even at a jog they had only just passed the stairs, and were beginning their journey down the short hallway that lead them to the massive double doors. Or, it had looked like a short hallway, but everything on this ship was in massive proportion to everything else, so it was so distance was difficult to determine at just a glance.

They had almost made it to the great double doors, when there was a sudden, distant booming noise.

The marines flinched and raised their weapons defensively, but as they watched, the doors before them slowly began to open. Golden light spilled out around them, pooling at their feet and lapping up against the walls. Adam had to blink, and Fealty quickly adjusted the opacity of his visor as Adam took his first step onto the command deck.

"Ho-ley-shit." Someone said from behind him.

Again, an understatement.

Adam stood before another massive room. It was not overwhelmingly white like the other rom had been but the ground floor was made u of many grey and white panels again shot through with channels. In the walls and floors there were small spots he could only assume were stations for bridge crew members, though he wasn't sure how they worked off the top of his head.

The room wasn't as tall as the previous room had been, maybe ten stories or less, he wasn't great at measurement, but there were many floating platforms and decks connected to the walls on either side, creating a symmetrical semicircle around what he instinctively knew to be, the captain's chair.

Or not a chair really, but an entire platform floating at the center of the room equidistance from the floor, ceiling and walls. Two other stations hovered close by, and a set of catwalks connected them, and just behind all that.

Another massive viewing window, that took up the entire back wall, filling the room with that golden light and the blue sky ahead onto a plane of white.

When Adam saw it.

His chest filled with longing.

In a daze, he followed his feet up the small pathway and towards the center of the bridge tracing his fingers over the metal. The texture was warm and smooth under his hand.

He had almost reached the top when , a shadow passed over him. He froze one foot raised eyes wide .

A man's silhouette stood before him, standing atop the command platform.

Adam opened his mouth, not sure what to say, feeling like a kid who had been caught sneaking cookies, what was he going to do?

There was silence for a long moment, the marines clustered behind him.

Then, the man turned slowly, light filtered past him, making it difficult to make out detail, "You're late."

There was silence as Adam struggled to find something to say then, "Fashionably?"

The man chuckled

Adam inched forward, "hard to know you're late if you didn't know there was a deadline, besides, we were held up on genesis."

"Ah yes, Chehan."

"Who are you?" Adam ventured still trying to squint at the man.

He stepped forward and his features resolved.

He was probably the most unremarkable person Adam had ever seen. If you had taken a picture of every human face in the world summed them together and took he average, this is what it would look like, middling skin tone, symmetrical face, middling eye shape brown in color. His face was neither too long or to short or too wide. His nose was the dictionary definition of a nose, and his lips did not venture to be too up or two down.

Adam found himself forgetting the man's face as soon as he looked away.

"I am no one of great consequence to you. A watcher mostly, a custodian of this ship. If I told you all the things I did it would only bore you."

"So... are you going to try and stop us?" Maverick asked inching to one side into a better strategic position.

The man did his best to ignore her.

"To the contrary, Maverick, I don't plan on trying to stop you. I was just on my way out." He stepped forward, and as he did Adam also noted the man wasn't very tall maybe five nine or ten at most, and he was so.... Average.

He paused next to Adam resting a hand on his shoulder, "oh, just one thing before you go."

Adam nodded dumbly.

"Don't scratch the paint."

Adam almost laughed, and turned to reassure the man he could make no promises, but as he turned he found the man gone. He blinked once confused and looked at the others who seemed almost as unsure as he was.

"ok, that was weird." Ramirez said.

Adam nodded in agreement, but turned his head back to the platform.

"So, genius, I don't see any controls. How do you fly this thing . I don't see any controls."

Adam stepped forward onto the platform and paused. He closed his eyes and, allowed himself to feel around for the right thought, the right.... Impression. And so he found it lurking in the back of his head like the memory of being able to ride a bike, "The pilot is the controls, the pilot is also,.... The power source."

Adam took one last step forward onto the platform stepping onto the center circle and raised his hands into he air. Ad he did the ship began to hum. A burst of warmth shot through his body as he was lifted slowly off the platform and into the air. As his body began to heat golden light began rushing through the channels of the ship brightening the room powering up its systems. A cool recorded voice began reading off ship details.

Ship stations opened up, projections of golden light flickering into place. What had once been an empty room was suddenly a command deck waiting for a crew.

Adam continued to rise his hands held out his body suspended by power, energy swelled out of him but then, then something went wrong.

His construct interfered , something in his mind would not allow the free flow of energy, and just as the ship had started up, it powered down suddenly, and Adam found himself flailing as he was dropped out of the air, landing flat on his face o the deck with a loud THUD.

There was silence for a moment before.

"You know it happens to the best of us man, performance anxiety and all that, Plenty of people have trouble getting it up."

Adam rolled onto his back, "Oh fuck you Ramirez."

"Mmm shouldn't you ask Sunny first."

Adam paused and got to his feet, "Wait, that gives me an idea!"

The group frowned, "I don't like where this is going."

"No, not that dipshit." Adam pointed a finger at Ramirez, "You, come here."

Ramirez did as told still looking confused, "mind telling me what we are doing?"

"We are going to spoon this ship back to life."

"The fuck."

Adam grabbed Ramirez by the hand and dragged him towards the center circle, "My body is interfering with the energy output required to power the ship , but two of us should be enough to power it just fine, now put your arms around my waist."

Ramirez laughed, "Ok, don't have to talk me int oa good time."

"Do any funny business with your hands, and I'll have to break your fingers. I'm a married man."

Ramirez shrugged, wrapping his arms tightly around Adam's waist, somewhat awkward because the SE suit made Adam so much bigger, In the end his waist was mid torso height on Ramirez, and Ramirez's face was pressed into Adam's back, "You know we are modern men, there is this thing called polyamory."

"You know what, just imagining being married to you is making me want a divorce." Adam raised his hands again, and this time the change was noticeable. Adam and Ramirez's feet both left the ground as they were pulled into the air. Golden light shot along the grooves once again, and the bridge was up and running. This time there was no crash, as power flowed through the ship into every system and channel.

Adam and Ramirez rose higher and higher until they were suspended fifteen to twenty feet over the platform adam's hands still outstretched.

The ship groaned with power.

"You know, since we are stealing her, she is going to need a name." Ramriez commented.

Adam forced power into the engines, feeling energy pulse through his body, "No need." He said softly, "She already has a name."

"She does?"

"yes.

Empyrean, Iris."